Costa's Hummingbird

[James Prudente]

Male Costa's in the yard, 40D, 1.4XII, 300 f4 L IS, f8, 1/800, ISO 400, handheld. Minor crop.

[Doug Brown]

The bird is sharp, and you've got nice iridescence; it's too you didn't get more of the head and gorget sparkling. I like the BG. The perch is only so-so. I would probably crop out the vertical portion of it, and I might crop so that the perch is coming in at an angle instead of horizontally.

[James Prudente]

The bird picked the perch. It is a live Wolfberry that is his perch to guard the feeder. I am not sure how you would crop the image to make the perch come in at an angle without tilting the bird.

Jim

[Arthur Morris]

Agree with most of what Doug said but agree with James on the tilt-from-an-angled crop. I would just crop out the VERT part of the wolfberry and wish for more iridesence (sp?) from the gorget. Sharp, perfect EXP, and a great yard bird.

[Doug Brown]

Good point Jim. I try to avoid perches that are perfectly horizontal; of course if that's where the bird likes to perch, you don't have much choice.

[James Prudente]

Repost with additional crop.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very nice James. I prefer the look of the new crop, but although subtle I prefer the little extra room of the original. Perhaps if the vertical part of the perch was QM'd out instead? In any regards, congrats on a fine image of this beautiful bird :-)

[Fabs Forns]

This is what Doug meant, using the crop tool and rotating the image to get the perch diagonal. I also use this when the bird is flying straight, to give a little inclination. If you have more room around, it's be great, if nt, you are going to have to fill the empty pixels.

[James Prudente]

Thanks Fabs.

Jim

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Thanks James for sharing your beautiful image, and thanks Fabs for your PS advise, very welcome.

[Arthur Morris]

Fabs, maybe I am being dense but if you crop like that and then view it as a vertical then the bird is tilted...

As is it is sitting square to the world...